Recap: Texas State 66, UTSA 52

Asked to comment on his team’s mental state following Saturday’s 66-52 home loss to rival Texas State, one of those games where the score didn’t do justice to how just how thoroughly the loser had been outplayed, Roadrunners coach Brooks Thompson offered a stark answer:

“I don’t know.”

Even more telling was the shrug that accompanied his response. If Thompson had an easy answer, it said, the problem would have been fixed a long time ago.

As it stands, the Roadrunners have gone eight games, almost one solid month, without playing a complete game. They’ve earned a pair of victories over that span, over Southeastern Louisiana and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, but neither were particularly impressive.

This, following an 8-1 run that culminated with a five-game win streak in which they led for 190 of a possible 200 minutes.

After last year’s miracle run, in which UTSA caught fire during the Southland Conference tournament, it’s impossible to write the Roadrunners off. But it’s getting harder and harder to imagine a repeat championship as the regular season winds down and the mediocrity mounts.

Saturday saw another low point as they crumbled at home, in front of the largest crowd of the season, under a withering second-half onslaught (10 3-pointers, 52 percent shooting) from the Bobcats. It could have been worse, too, had Texas State not missed a multitude of open shots during the first 20 minutes.

Leading the way was forward Matt Staff, who dominated with 28 points, 12 rebounds, six assists, two steals and two blocked shots. It wasn’t so much the numbers, either, as much as the ease with which he compiled them. With Texas State using quick ball movement to yank UTSA’s zone defense as if on a string, Staff was wide open on almost all of his 14 shots.

Once teammate Brooks Ybarra (17 points, five 3s) starting hitting in the second half, the Roadrunners had almost no chance. Especially once their execution, already lackluster before the break, degenerated into 1-on-1 play as the game slipped away. Stephen Franklin (3 for 5) was the only one of nine UTSA players to make more shots than he missed as the Roadrunners finished at 31 percent for the game.

Never one to pull punches, forward Jeromie Hill offered a sober assessment of where UTSA sits with two games (at Central Arkansas on Wednesday; home against UT Arlington on Saturday) left in the regular season.

“I don’t know whether everyone wants it, maybe, as bad as I do,” he said. “It’s just disappointing to have a performance like that. Obviously, we’ve got to look to the next (game), and maybe we’ll click like last year. You can wait until the last minute…but you’re playing Russian Roulette, basically.

“We knew they were going to play hard. They’re playing for that last spot in the (Southland) tournament. It’s not as big a deal to us. But it’s still Texas State, at home, with a big crowd. To me, that’s a must-win game. We just didn’t get it done. I don’t know what the problem is, basically. I don’t know if it’s attitude or Xs-and-Os, but it has to be fixed as soon as possible.”